Editorial: Keep questions coming about L.A. candidates' union cash

This is the stage of a campaign, mere days before an election, when serious people decry the negative tone of advertising and debates. They say candidates are making too many casual insinuations about their opponents' records, too hastily impugning the motives of opponents' supporters.

But let's make an exception for the 2013 Los Angeles city election when it comes to the sharp questions candidates are raising about opponents who are funded largely by labor unions. Instead of complaining about these kinds of negative messages, voters should welcome them.

Official records show union political action committees account for the vast majority of the more than $7.5 million spent on citywide, City Council and L.A. school board races so far in the form of unrestricted independent expenditures. Business groups can't keep up.

In some cases, lopsided financial support from organized labor is turning incumbents and other front-runners into shoo-ins in Tuesday's election. In at least one case, it has turned a little-known and inexperienced candidate into the leading fundraiser in his City Council race.

In every case, unions are trying to buy influence on some of the most serious issues facing the city, beginning with the future of public workers' pay and pensions. Reining in employee costs is essential to saving L.A. from fiscal ruin - but that doesn't mean the employees unions are for it.

Voters who are leery of labor-backed candidates can find details of union campaign efforts at the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission's election website. Look at the biggest "Independent Expenditures." The same big contributors' names come up again and again: the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the Service Employees International Union, the Police Protective League, the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, and Working Californians.

Working Californians is tied in with the Department of Water and Power employees union. It's the "WCA" logo on billboards supporting mayoral hopeful Wendy Greuel. And it's bankrolling campaigns by Gil Cedillo, Curren Price and first-time candidate John Choi for City Council seats. All three would replace termed-out council members who voted for pension cutbacks, and all three support the Proposition A sales-tax hike.

WCA campaigned hard in 2012 against Prop. 32. No wonder -- the union influence at work before the March 5 election is precisely what that unsuccessful state initiative would have restricted.

Candidates who accept huge contributions from unions must try to answer the questions this raises about their ability to govern in the interest of all Angelenos; some can and some can't. Their opponents must keep the questions coming.